जय श्रीराम!
सा किलाश्वासिता चण्डी भर्त्रा तत्संश्रुतौ वरौ ।
उद्ववामेन्द्रसिक्ता भूर्बिलमग्नाविवोरगौ ॥ ५॥
Notes: Kālidāsa condenses here the dramatic scenes enacted by the willful, selfish, Kaikeyī who manages to force Daśaratha to grant her two boons of extreme virulence. The king had long ago yielded his mind and soul to this young wife who fully knew how to manipulate him. Her evil nature lay dormant like poisonous snakes. Now they emerged just as two serpents emerge from their hole when the earth receives generous rain. While Nature celebrates this festivity of rainfall, Nature also ejects poisonous creatures from their hideouts to terrorise us. Similarly, Kaikeyī now "vomited' her two demands as boons to be given without any alternative by the king.
My thoughts on this terrific twist to the story are somewhat at variance with those sympathetic to Kaikeyī. It is stated that when seeking her hand, Daśaratha had promised her brother that her son would rule Ayodhyā. Maybe the king was confident he would die without producing any sons since this promise was made after he had been married for a long time and had no sons.
It calls for a macabre mindset to invoke that promise when the opportunity arises for Ayodhyā to install their beloved, virtuous and valorous prince on the throne. Kaikeyī had a handmaid by the name of Mantharā from Kekaya, who knew how to get things done to please her queen. She awakened the worst sentiments of Kaikeyī when she heard the news of Śrī Rāma's impending coronation.
Kaikeyī "rose" to the occasion like poisonous snakes with raised hoods!
I am reminded of Śrī Kṛṣṇa's words in the Śrimad Bhagavadgītā:
काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भवः। महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम् ॥
᳚Arjuna, know Rajas manifests as man's worst enemies - desire and anger. They destroy man's wisdom, force him to act sinfully, and are never satiated. "
The result of Kaikeyī's extracting these boons from her helpless husband was that she became a widow, scorned by all posterity, spurned by her own son Bharata, and rueing her misdeed for fourteen long years when Śrī Rāma languished in the forest and Bharata lived like a hermit in Nandigrāma.
Every now and then, Valmīki reminds us through the words of Śrī Rama, Sītā, and Lakṣmaṇa, how this wilful and cruel act of Kaikeyī removed all joy from their lives. Not to mention what the mothers of the three would have suffered, thinking of their ordeal.
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जय श्रीराम!
